I have a tablet (Gemini Joy Tab) that has stopped working and I intend to get a replacement under the extended warranty policy that covers it but I'm concerned that the confidential data contained in the tablet could be accessed by third parties after I hand it over.

I'm sure the retailer (Staples) will give me guarantees that the tablet will be either destroyed or the data contained within made inaccessible but we all know such assurances can be worthless if their is a dishonest person someone in the chain who is determined enough to get at the data.

My question is can I do anything to ensure the data is destroyed before I hand the tablet over?

As I cannot open the unit to gain access to the components as doing so would invalidate the replacement policy, could I use some form of external energy source to do so i.e strong magnetic field.

Any advice would be welcome. Thanks

You need to find out if your tablet uses encrypted memory access. On iPads( +iPhones etc) , for example, all data in the device is encrypted all the time and a full reset of the device replaces the memory encryption keys with new values - thus guaranteeing that old data cannot be decoded (even if it could somehow be read)

Just do a factory reset. That will wipe all the data from the tablet.

Not good enough - according to this article!

http://www.greenbot.com/article/2451...id-device.html

I think for most people a factory reset is good enough. True if someone wants to get at your data and they have access to the right equipment they could get at your data. However its not easy or cheap (the last time I looked a few years back). So not something most people will be able to do.

Its the same with hard drives, you can delete the data, however the data is still there, its only the FATs/MFTs just get reset so it doesnt know that some data is present on a certain sector onthe disk.

If you really are worried about data, burn the bloody thing. Its the only way to be sure.

The article I pointed to actually GAVE a more sensible answer!

Turn on data encryption first and THEN reset it!

True, but if you turn on data encryption, you then have to enter a pin when you reboot your phone. Forget that and all your data is gone.

However I do agree having encryption turned on is better than burning your phone.

The original question was how to securely erase a tablet which was being returned. So encryption would only need to be turned on just once to do that surely.

... except that the OPs tablet doesn't work, therefore you can't enable encryption or factory reset it.